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Research Center Listings

Harvard Kennedy School of Government Research Centers

A. Alfred Taubman Center for State and Local Government - The Center conducts research on a range of issues relating to subnational governments and intergovernmental relations. Of potential interest to nonprofit students and practitioners are programs on education policy, civic engagement and social capital, emergency preparedness, applications of information technology to governance, and the Greater Boston region.

Website: www.hks.harvard.edu/taubmancenter
Email: taubman@harvard.edu
Phone: (617) 495-2199

Roy and Lila Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation - The Roy and Lila Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation advances excellence in governance and strengthens democratic institutions worldwide. Through its research, education, international programs, and government innovations awards, the Institute fosters creative and effective government problem-solving and serves as a catalyst for addressing many of the most pressing needs of the world’s citizens. Asia Programs, a school-wide initiative integrating Asia-related activities, joined the Ash Institute in July 2008.

Website: www.ashinstitute.harvard.edu
Email: innovations@harvard.edu
Phone: (617) 495-0557

Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs - The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs is the hub of the Harvard Kennedy School’s research, teaching, and training in international security affairs, environmental and resource issues, and science and technology policy. The Center’s mission is to provide leadership in advancing policy-relevant knowledge about the most important challenges of international security and other critical issues where science, technology, environmental policy, and international affairs intersect. The Center’s leadership begins with the recognition of science and technology as driving forces transforming threats and opportunities in international affairs. The Center integrates insights of social scientists, natural scientists, technologists, and practitioners with experience in government, diplomacy, the military, and business to address critical issues.

Website: www.belfercenter.org
Email: Sharon_wilke@ksg.harvard.edu
Phone: (617) 495-1400

Carr Center for Human Rights Policy - The mission of the Carr Center is to train future leaders for careers in public service and to apply first-class research to the solution of public policy problems. The Center’s research, teaching and writing are guided by a commitment to make human rights principles central to the formulation of good public policy in the United States and throughout the world. The Center uses its: convening power to create a safe space for human rights organizations and other policy actors to engage in constructive self-criticism and to forge new partnerships; research capacity to evaluate the human rights policies of the United States and other governments and to analyze the dilemmas that need to be resolved when human rights principles are brought to bear on major public policy choices; and, teaching capacity to inspire future leaders to make respect for human rights principles a central commitment of democratic leadership.

Website: www.hks.harvard.edu/cchrp
Phone: (617) 495-5819

Center for International Development at Harvard University - The Center for International Development at Harvard University (CID) was established on July 1, 1998 by the Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID) and the Kennedy School of Government (KSG) to serve as Harvard’s primary center for research on sustainable international development.  As a university-wide center, its goal is to advance understanding of development challenges and offer viable solutions to problems of global poverty. The CID seeks to be the leading idea factory focusing on resolving the dilemmas of public policy associated with generating stable, shared, and sustainable prosperity in developing countries.  Our ongoing mission is to apply knowledge to and revolutionize the world of development practice.  Currently, our main programs are working to:
• Change the way in which growth strategies are conceived, designed, and implemented
• Reinvent development policy to facilitate countries'  move to higher productivity activities
• Extend markets to the undeserved and empower the disenfranchised
• Improve service delivery in education, health, and other social services
• Design institutions,  policies and practices that promote sustainable development which meet human needs while conserving the earth’s life support systems  

Website:  www.cid.harvard.edu
Email: cid@ksg.harvard.edu
Phone: (617) 495-4112

Center for Public Leadership - Launched in 2000 through a generous grant from the Wexner Foundation, the Center for Public Leadership has responded rapidly to the burgeoning interest in leadership. The Center is dedicated to excellence in leadership education and research. It is equally committed to bridging the gap between leadership theory and practice. The Center for Public Leadership provides a forum for students, scholars, and practitioners who are committed to the idea that effective public leadership is essential to the common good. It creates opportunities for reflection and discovery, and promotes the dynamic exchange of ideas among those from different disciplines, sectors, cultures, and nations.

Website: www.hks.harvard.edu/leadership
Email: cpl@ksg.harvard.edu
Phone: (617) 496-8866

Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics - The Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics encourages teaching and research about ethical issues in public and professional life; helps meet the growing need for teachers and scholars who address questions of moral choice in architecture, business, education, engineering, government, journalism, law, medicine, public health, public policy and other professions; brings together those with competence in philosophical thought and those with experience in professional education; and promotes a perspective on ethics informed by both theory and practice. A guiding principle of the Center is that moral and political theory can help identify and clarify ethical issues in public life. The Center explores the connection between the problems that professionals confront and the social and political structures in which they act.

Website: www.ethics.harvard.edu
Email: ethics@harvard.edu
Phone: (617) 495-1336

The Institute of Politics - Harvard’s Institute of Politics, established in 1966 as a memorial to President Kennedy, seeks to unite and engage students, particularly undergraduates, with academics, politicians, activists, and policymakers on a non-partisan basis and to stimulate and nurture their interest in public service and leadership.  
The Institute strives to promote greater understanding and cooperation between the academic world and the world of politics and public affairs.  

The Institute oversees the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum, a premier arena for political speech, discussion and debate and runs a fellows program for political practitioners.  The Institute also offers conferences for presidential campaign managers and newly-elected Mayors and Members of Congress, wide-ranging internship opportunities and a National Campaign for Political and Civic Engagement.

Website: www.iop.harvard.edu/
Email: kerri_collins@harvard.edu
Phone: (617) 495-1360

Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy - The Shorenstein Center was established to promote a greater understanding of the media by public officials, improve coverage by media professionals of government and politics, better anticipate the consequences of public policies that affect the media and the First Amendment, and increase knowledge about how the media affect our political processes and governmental institutions.  The Center includes a faculty of scholars and practitioners who, through their research and teaching programs, are creating a body of knowledge about press, politics and public policy in theory and in practice.

Website: www.shorensteincenter.org
Phone: (617) 495-8269

Joint Center for Housing Studies - The Center’s research on housing and community development issues reflects the premise that the resolution of these issues calls for interdisciplinary approaches and cooperation among leaders in academia, government, and the public and private sectors. The Center publishes reports, articles, and papers including the nationally recognized annual study, “The State of the Nation’s Housing.” The Center’s educational activities include student research assistantships, graduate fellowships, regular lecture series, occasional major policy conferences, and the annual John T. Dunlop Lecture on Housing. The Director of the Joint Center is Nicolas P. Retsinas, former Assistant Secretary for Housing-Federal Housing Commissioner at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Website: www.jchs.harvard.edu           
Phone: (617) 495-7908

The Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy - The Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy is a vibrant intellectual community of faculty, masters and Ph.D. students, researchers, and administrative staff striving to improve public policy and practice in the areas of health care, human services, criminal justice, inequality, education, urban poverty and labor. The work of the Center draws on the worlds of scholarship, policy, and practice to address pressing questions by: carrying out research on important policy issues that affect the lives of those who are most vulnerable and needy; providing professional education for those in the world of practice; educating the next generation of academics and policy scholars; ensuring that research and education are closely tied to and draw from politics and practice in the field; and, developing working partnerships with the broader policy community. For two decades, the Wiener Center has been an influential voice in domestic policy through faculty work on community policing, welfare reform, youth violence, inner city poverty, education, American Indian economic and social development, and medical error rates. The Center’s research portfolio is both broad and deep, spanning many academic disciplines, encompassing traditional research as well as executive sessions, case-based research, and action research, and employing a variety of research methods.

Website: www.hks.harvard.edu/wiener
Email: mwcenter@harvard.edu
Phone: (617) 496-4082

The Mossaver-Rahmani Center for Business & Government - The Center for Business and Government helps to develop solutions to some of society's most challenging problems at the interface of business and government. It is a catalyst, convener, and innovator at the critical intersection where private enterprise meets governance. In the United States and around the world, we promote economic growth while helping public officials promulgate fair, thoughtful and efficient policies. Bringing together thought leaders from both the public and private sectors, and drawing on the unparalleled intellectual resources of the Kennedy School and Harvard University, we examine the issues, create a dialogue, and seek answers.

Website: www.hks.harvard.edu/m-rcbg/
Phone: (617) 384-7329

Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston - The Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston seeks to improve the governance of Greater Boston by fostering better connections between the region's scholars, policymakers, and civic leaders.  The Institute sponsors events on issues of importance to the region; supports courses and research that focus on key issues in the region; and runs a summer fellowship program that places Boston-area graduate students in state and local entities throughout the region.

Website: www.hks.harvard.edu/rappaport/
Email: polly@rappaportinstitute.org 
Contact: (617) 495-5091

The Women and Public Policy Program (WAPPP) - The Women and Public PolicyProgram of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government was founded with the internal goal of incorporating an understanding of gender perspectives on public policy into the education of future and current leaders trained at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, and the external goal of contributing to the canon of scholarship on women and public policy.

Website: www.hks.harvard.edu/wappp
Email: wappp@harvard.edu
Phone: (617) 496-6973

Harvard Business School Research Centers

Social Enterprise Initiative - Grounded in HBS’s mission to educate leaders who make a difference in the world, the Social Enterprise Initiative (SEI) aims to inspire, educate, and support current and emerging leaders to apply management skills to create social value. Through an integrated approach to social-enterprise related teaching, research, and activities at HBS, SEI engages with leaders in all sectors to generate and disseminate practicable resources, tools, and knowledge with the ultimate goal of bettering society.

Contact: Margot Dushin, Director of Programs, (617) 495-6421
Website: www.hbs.edu/socialenterprise
Email: se@hbs.edu

Harvard School of Public Health Research Centers

The François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights - The Center was founded at the Harvard School of Public Health in 1993 through a gift from the Association François-Xavier Bagnoud. The center is the first academic center to focus exclusively on health and human rights. Center faculty work at international and national levels through collaboration and partnerships with health and human rights practitioners, governmental and nongovernmental organizations, academic institutions, and international agencies to do the following: 

• expand knowledge through scholarship, professional training, and public education
• develop domestic and international policy focusing on the relationship between health and human rights in a global perspective
• engage scholars, public health and human rights practitioners, public officials, donors, and activists in the health and human rights movement.

Website: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/fxbcenter/
Contact: Patricia Spellman, Administrative Director
E-Mail: pspellma@hsph.harvard.edu
Phone: (617) 432-6940

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Research Centers

The Center for Reflective Community Practice - The Center for Reflective Community Practice at MIT designs and implements projects which build the capacity of practitioner and community-centered cross sector teams to improve the lives of those least served by our society. Our projects support the development and use of knowledge embedded in marginalized communities to build social capital, improve community practice, and inform policy. CRCP designs structures for creative alliances and applies tools based on reflective practice, group dynamics, cultural psychology, organizational learning, team-based work, and participatory design process to disrupt "business as usual" ways of working. The goal is to produce outcomes and solutions that emerge from the collective genius of groups that have deeply and thoroughly engaged the inventiveness and knowledge of every individual involved.

Contact: Ceasar McDowell, Director
Website: http://crcp.mit.edu/index.php
E-Mail: crcp@mit.edu